The build date of SAGA SEA in 1974 is, in all reality, a red herring. While the 52.4 m x 11.6 m offshore supply vessel SEA BRUSE was built at Houston, Texas in 1974, only a tiny portion of the hull was re-used in 1990 during, essentially, the construction of the 92 m x 16.5 m factory trawler SAGA SEA in a Norwegian shipyard.

The late eighties saw several of these "conversions," when allowances in the Jones Act allowed for foreign-built US flag vessels as long as some portion of the vessel, however small, was originally a US-built ship.

In the most egregious case, the 24 m, 175 GT research vessel ACONA (IMO 7738412, blt 1961) was "rebuilt" as the 87 m, 5,015 GT factory trawler AMERICAN TRIUMPH.